Digital Dictionaries
Chinese Text Project Dictionary 中國哲學書電子化計劃字典 http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl Donald Sturgeon, ed. © 2006-2013. The CTP Dictionary features a good amount of lexical information, including pronunciations in Mandarin pinyin, Cantonese jyutping and Stimson’s Tang reconstructions, detailed graph composition information (and other graphs related by component), numeric references to other dictionaries, and full entries from the Shuowen jiezi and Guangyun dictionaries. This dictionary has three additional unique strengths: 1) Full integration with the extensive textual corpora on the site (see its listing in the Encyclopedia section below), featuring a wide range of examples drawn from the texts provided for each graph and many common compounds; 2) The dictionary search function accepts strings of characters, or one can simply use any of the texts on the site, and then provides basic lexical information (pronunciation, meanings, variant graphic forms and links to other dictionaries) for each graph in the order entered; and 3) The Advanced Search function “Text/concept search: Dictionary match” permits searches limited by specific gloss of many graphs, as generated from the English translations. Searches can be performed in simplified or traditional Chinese, including many variant forms; its ability to parse whole texts and use the individual graphs as dictionary input is a powerful feature. Hanyu da cidian 漢語大詞典 No online version. CD-ROM available from the publisher. Also included in Lingoes and Pleco. Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風, ed. The Commercial Press (H.K.) Version 3.0, © 2010. The Hanyu da cidian is by far the most comprehensive dictionary available for the Chinese language, including over 300,000 entries, with full definitions and historical citations for each entry. Compilation of the dictionary was undertaken from 1979-1993 by a staff of over 300 scholars and lexicographers; the digital version has its own native search functions, or users can enter search terms directly. In Chinese only, with separate editions for traditional and simplified characters. iCIBA iciba.com Kingsoft Corp., © 2012. The online version of their offline Powerword 金山詞霸translation software, the bilingual iCIBA dictionary features numerous detailed Chinese-English definitions and a wealth of contextual example sentences for both Chinese and English terms. Compounds, variations and synonyms are also provided for each entry, with encoding and grapheme information also available for Chinese. There is also a browser add-on which provides pop-up definitions and lexical data, for Chinese or English. Searches can be performed in English, traditional or simplified Chinese, though the lexicon is in simplified characters only. Kangxi zidian 康熙字典網上版 http://www.kangxizidian.com/ kangxizidian.com, © 2009. This website is very much what one might expect: images of pages from the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary are presented alongside essentially the same content in digital form. The dictionary also contains a basic search function. Entries and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only. Le Grand Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinoise 利氏漢法辭典 http://chinesereferenceshelf.brillonline.com/grand-ricci/ Also included in ''Pleco.'' Koninklijke Brill NV, © 2012. With nearly 300,000 entries, this dictionary describes itself as “the most comprehensive up-to-date dictionary of Chinese into a modern Western language”. Detailed definitions for each entry are provided, and all entries are in French only. Single-graph searches in traditional Chinese characters only; an institutional or personal Brill account is required for access. Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage 林語堂《當代漢英詞典》電子版 http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict Chinese University Press, Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學出版社. The digital version of Lin Yutang’s 1972 dictionary provides his extensive Chinese and English glosses for over 40,000 Chinese graphs and compounds, divided by parts of speech, accessible via a well-designed search system which allows the user to search any parts of the dictionary using a variety of criteria. A full English index and user’s guide is also provided. The entries for the dictionary are all in English and traditional Chinese; there is no support for simplified characters. MDBG http://www.mdbg.net Source: CC-CEDICT http://cc-cedict.org/wiki mdbg.net is a site based in the Netherlands, directly linked to and supported by the CC-CEDICT project, the largest collaborative public Chinese-English dictionary (wherein users provide entries and corrections to the lexicon). Along with extensive lexical data, MDBG is one of few dictionaries which provides the HSK level of each word. The main search function, the “Word dictionary”, can search by traditional and simplified graphic forms, Mandarin pinyin and by English keyword. One particularly useful function is that users can input a short text in Chinese characters, which is then parsed programmatically and returns the entries for each graph, word or phrase in turn. The “Character dictionary” additionally accepts Yale or jyutping Cantonese, cangjie and four-corner codes as search lemmata. Along with encoding converters, MDBG now offers integrated lexical tools for Chrome and Firefox browsers. Search lemmata include traditional and simplified Chinese, English keywords and text strings. Nciku Next - 词酷 http://www.nciku.com Beijing DFHL Co. Ltd. 北京东方慧灵科技发展有限公司 According to the site, the nciku system is designed to be “an illustrated and interactive learning resource”. As of this date, it is not much beyond a basic bilingual dictionary site, with entries taken from the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Chinese-English dictionaries, the Collins Chinese-English dictionaries, the English-only Macmillan Dictionary and the Chinese-only Xiandai hanyu guifan cidian 现代汉语规范词典. Basic glosses are provided for each word/graph/compound, followed by a number of example sentences and collocations. Stroke order animation and character composition is also provided for Chinese graphs. The site is in simplified characters, but searches can be performed using traditional characters and English as well. Mobile apps for iPhone and Android are available. Qingsong Cha 轻松查 http://qingsongcha.com/ Unknown This dictionary website is similar to many others, providing Chinese definitions in detail and simply English, but it does have some extra features including an attractive stroke order presentation and a robust selection of variant graphic forms. It also, oddly, has a collection of classic texts. The site is in simplified characters, but searches can be performed using traditional characters and English as well. Revised Chinese Dictionary (Taiwan Ministry of Education) 重編國語辭典修訂本 (漢漢) http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/ Taiwan Ministry of Education中華民國教育部, © 1994. This dictionary website run by the Taiwan MOE is in traditional Chinese characters only; basic character information and definitions by part of speech are provided for individual graphs and a large number of compounds, including the locus classicus ''for each. Entries and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only. Sou wen jie zi 搜文解字 '' (incl. ''Hanyu da zidian 漢語大字典 ) http://words.sinica.edu.tw/sou/sou.html Huang Juren黃居仁, ed. Institute of Linguistics, Academica Sinica中央研究院語言學研究所. The single-character search function from the ''Sou wen jie zi dictionary contains the entries from the 54,678 characters in the Hanyu da zidian in a multi-scope searchable digital interface. The “phrase search” function returns standard phrases in which a graph is located, configurable by location within the phrase, length of the phrase or reduplicated binomes. The “text search” function searches for occurrences of the search term within the following classical texts: the Analects ''論語, the ''Mengzi孟子, the Great Learning 大學, the Doctrine of the Mean 中庸, the Laozi 老子, the Zhuangzi 莊子 and the Three Hundred Tang Poems 唐詩三百首. Entries and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only. Thesaurus Linguae Sinicae 新編漢文典 http://tls.uni-hd.de Christoph Harbsmeier 何莫邪, ed., Jiang Shaoyu 蔣紹愚, asst. ed. The Thesaurus Linguae Sinicae (TLS) is a very large lexicon uniquely designed to show correlations among Chinese words with “synonymous” meanings within syntactic categories. Most remarkable about TLS is its attempt to systematize lexical and grammatical knowledge and use it as the foundation for a database of non-contemporary Chinese. Synonym groups are in English, each including a detailed English definition. The English terms which form the basis of the database are taken from many highly-regarded translations of a wide variety of early Chinese texts, both transmitted and excavated, including much of the early Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist canons. Data for each graph includes definitions taken from Karlgren’s Grammata Serica Recensa, early Chinese reconstructed pronunciations and phonological data, variant character tables, and the lexeme representations and lexemes which inform the synonym groups. Searches can be performed in English or traditional Chinese, within the following categories: Headword, Word, Synonym Group, Word in a Text, Word Attributed to a Text, Syntactic category (English only, based on Chinese categories), Rhetorical device (English only) and Character definition. Wenlin 文林 No online version. Digital installer or CD-ROM available from the publisher at wenlin.com. Wenlin Institute, Inc. 文林研究所 © 2006, version 4.1 released 2013. Wenlin is a Chinese-English standalone application featuring a bilingual dictionary (originally based on John DeFrancis’ ABC Chinese-English Dictionary), text editor and flashcard system. It contains over 10,000 characters and approximately 200,000 words and phrases. Variant and paleographic forms, stroke order, subcomponents and a variety of lexical references also listed for each individual graph, any of which can be used as search lemmata. Unicode, GB, Big5, and UTF-8 encodings supported. Both traditional and simplified characters supported, with a built-in converter. Wictionary 維基詞典 http://zh.wiktionary.org (for Chinese; other languages available via wiktionary.org) Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Open content: all entries written and edited by volunteers. The Chinese Wictionary itself is extremely extensive, containing over 800,000 entries, but its main strength is that any searches can return results from all the Wiktionaries in more than 175 languages. The lexical entries are generally quite simple, with standard dictionary references, orthography (including variants), pronunciations (including Cantonese and reconstructions), simple English definitions and links to related entries, followed by entries for the graph/compound found in other Wiktionaries (in other languages). Searches can be made in many languages/scripts, but will sometimes fail to return Chinese language data, even for a Chinese character. Zdic 漢典 http://www.zdic.net © 2004-2013, zdic.net. zdic.net is the most comprehensive free online Chinese-Chinese dictionary, containing detailed definitions and a wide variety of lexical data (character stroke animations, radicals and subcomponents, Mandarin putonghua pronunciations with sound files, variant graphic forms, encoding data and input sequences) for virtually every Chinese graph in Unicode CJK character set. Entries from the classical Kangxi zi dian, Shuo wen jie zi and Song ben guang yun dictionaries are provided, as well as sample paleographic forms, pronunciations in various dialects and single-word English translations for each graph. Entries are in simplified Chinese, though the search function accepts a wide variety of graphic forms. Zhongwen.com 中文.com http://www.zhongwen.com Rick Harbaugh, ed. © 1996-2011. This site is designed for the learner of modern Chinese and includes a number of study aides, sample readings and links to other sites. The dictionary features simple glosses for Chinese characters and compounds, explanations for graphic composition and parts of speech (unfortunately all entries are images, so they’re not able to be cut-and-pasted into other applications). The dictionary’s main strength is that it’s arranged by common component, which allows the user to quickly jump to other graphically similar entries. Searches can be made in English, Mandarin pinyin or by using the site’s own search functions. Zhongwen da cidian 中文大辭典 http://ap6.pccu.edu.tw/Dictionary Zhang Qiyun 張其昀, ed. © 2006, Chinese Culture University 中國文化大學 (Taiwan). Based originally on Tetsuji Morohashi’s 1960 Dai Kan-Wa Jiten 大漢和辞典, the Zhongwen da cidian was the preeminent Chinese dictionary until the publication of the Hanyu da cidian. The online version of the dictionary contains over 370,000 entries, and is fully searchable by single graph or phrase; a native radical-stroke index is also provided. All entries and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only. 在线新华字典词典 http://xh.5156edu.com 5156edu.com The 5156edu website contains several types of lexica, mainly intended for young Chinese students studying Chinese. The dictionary provides most of the main definitions for a character, each accompanied by source citations from classic texts (similar to those in the Hanyu da cidian), followed by compounds and their short definitions. Related idioms and homonyms are listed on the left side. The 5156edu sites are all in simplified Chinese characters only, including search functions.